Obama and the Dalai Lama Unite For World Peace

Obama and the Dalai Lama Unite For World Peace

Obama and the Dalai Lama Unite For World Peace

Former United States President Barack Obama met with the Dalai Lama this weekend to discuss finding peace in a world “torn by strife and violence,” AOL reports.

The 82-year-old spiritual leader said he and Obama are “really two old trusted friend[s]” and that the meeting was “very good.” He said world peace was the primary focus of their 45-minute discussion. “I mentioned to [Obama] that now the time has come for us to promote the sense of oneness among seven billion human beings. It is sad to see there are so much differences among people.”

Representative for the Dalai Lama Kasur Tempa Tsering said the Tibetan leader held Obama in high regard. “To Obama, His Holiness said, ‘You are not only a former US president but you are a Nobel laureate, you are young and you can do a lot. We should fulfil our aspiration for world peace. Maybe my generation will not see the results, but your generation will definitely see the results’,” Tsering said.

Only two months ago, the Dalai Lama voiced his concerns about the United States becoming “nationalist” and “selfish” under current President Donald Trump’s reign. “The present president, in the very beginning he mentioned ‘America first.’ That sounded in my ear not very nice,” the Dalai Lamai told a conference in October.

Obama and the Dalai Lama last met at the White House in July 2016. This weekend’s visit was part of Obama’s five-day world tour around India, China and France.

As part of the tour, Obama spoke at a leadership summit in India where he made a subtle reference to Trump. “I actually have more [Twitter followers] than other people who use it more often,” he told the laughing audience. He then advised them to withhold from “say[ing] the first thing that pops into your head, just have a little bit of an edit function, that’s wise for life generally. You see people getting in all kinds of trouble because they sent out some tweet and then they’re trying to erase it afterwards but somebody’s screenshot it and they’re getting embarrassed.”

Obama has 97.4 million followers on Twitter compared to Trump’s 43.8 million.